Change of Heart
by otownroxx
Summary: An alternate ending to 'Last Week Fights, This Week Tights'...oneshot. maybe?


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A/N: Thanks to for the transcript that I used to write this. Yes, almost all of the dialogue is from the episode 'Last Week Fights, This Week Tights', until the end of this story. If you've seen the episode, you'll be able to tell. I am rewriting the end of the episode, and I'm basing it on the script that I found on twiztv, so some gestures and things like that might not be like they were in the episode, but the dialogue at least should be correct. Thanks for reading.

Change of Heart

Rory and Dean glanced up as Jess entered the building. Rory looked over at Dean and saw his eyes darken at the sight of Jess.

"What are you doing here?" Rory asked.

Jess paused a beat before replying. "I need to talk to you," he told her, painfully aware that Dean was standing just a little closer than necessary to Rory. He wondered what Dean was doing there in the first place. Wasn't he married? What was he doing at Yale, in front of Rory's dorm room?

"What's going on?" Dean demanded, trying very hard to resist the urge to punch the man standing three feet away from him. Jess didn't have to do anything but show up, and Dean felt the need to hit him. Some things never change.

Rory eyed Dean, ready to act as a referee in case either of them tried anything. Once Dean assured her, with nothing more than a small nod at her, that he wasn't going to do anything, she turned to Jess. "What are you doing here?" she asked him.

"Rory, please." He could see by the look on her face that she didn't want him there. Yet she said nothing. She didn't have to. And, although it was obvious she did not want to see him just then, she wasn't the type of person to just tell him to leave. Then again, he could be wrong.

"Rory?" Dean watched her, confused, and growing angrier by the second. Was she seriously thinking about letting Jess talk? Did she really want to hear what he had to say, after how much he had hurt her?

Rory lowered her head, her hair cascading over her face in soft waves, covering her eyes. "Go—go home," she told Dean, raising her head just long enough to catch the look of hurt on his face. She hated to be the cause of that.

He took a step toward her. "No."

Rory straightened, her eyes flicking over to Jess, who was waiting patiently for his turn to speak. "Yes, go. You should go."

Dean, afraid he was about to do something he would later regret, shook his head and walked off.

Rory watched him go until the door closed behind him with a soft thud of finality. She sighed, turning back to Jess. "Why won't you leave me alone? You won't go away."

Jess swallowed. "Rory."

She stared at him for a moment, before finally asking, "What do you want?"

He seemed at a loss for words. He really hadn't expected to get this far. He had come close to talking to her a few times before. He had even come to Yale. But as soon as he saw her, he had chickened out and ran. He vowed not to run this time—not from her.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I just wanted to see you, talk to you. I just..." He trailed off, wanting to tell her about how he had changed. How he had been to Yale before, to see her, and how much he needed her in his life.

"What?" Rory asked after a moment.

She was getting impatient, Jess noticed. He would have to act fast. He might not get another chance.

"Come with me."

Rory blinked. "What?"

"Come with me," he repeated, taking her hand in his. She slowly pulled away, and Jess felt his heart fall to the floor.

"Where?"

Jess took a step toward her. "I don't know...away!"

She had to come with him...she just had to. He couldn't leave without her. Not again.

Was he serious? Did he really expect her to drop everything and go away with him? After everything he had done?

"Are you crazy?"

"Probably," he replied. "Do it. Come with me. Don't think about it." His voice was urgent, and it confused her. Why now? she wanted to know.

She was still trying to process his request, as she stepped over to the door to her room and reached into her purse for her keys. Her head was spinning, and she really needed to sit down. She placed a hand to her head, reaching out with her free hand to unlock her door. Her hand was shaking so badly, she couldn't even fit the key into the lock.

"I can't do that," she told him, finally unlocking the door and walking into the room.

Jess followed her, not even bothering to close the door behind them. "You don't think you can do it, but you can," he insisted. "You can do whatever you want."

"It's not what I want," she said, shaking her head vigorously. Why was he doing this?

"It is. I know you." He wasn't going to give up. He needed this to work.

Her eyes flashed. "You don't know me!"

"Look, we'll go to New York. We'll work, we'll live together, we'll be together." He quickly continued as he saw her start to open her mouth to decline his offer. "It's what I want." He paused slightly, adding softly, "It's what you want, too."

Her eyes welled with tears. "No!"

He took a step toward her. "I want to be with you, but not here. Not this place, not Stars Hollow. We have to start new."

"There's nothing to start!" Rory cried, throwing up her hands. He wasn't letting go of this, and she didn't know how much longer she could hold herself together.

He gestured to the boxes all around them. "You're packed. Your stuff is all in boxes. It's perfect. You're ready. And I'm ready." Once again, he took her hands in his. "I'm ready for this. You can count on me now. I know you couldn't count on me before, but you can now. You _can_."

"No!" Rory tried to turn away, but Jess let go of her hand and cupped her chin in his hands, forcing her to meet his gaze.

"Look, you know we're supposed to be together. I knew it the first time I saw you two years ago, and you know it, too. I know you do."

Rory closed her eyes, letting the smell of his cologne and the feel of his breath on her cheek wash over her. Her knees started to give, and Jess took a step back. Rory's eyes flew open.

What was she doing? She had to stand her ground. Remember what he did to her. "No, no, no, no, no!"

She pressed her back against the wall, wishing she could just disappear into the walls and out of this situation altogether. "No, no, no..." It became some sort of soft chant.

Rory slowly sunk to the ground, her eyes on the floor. Jess sat down beside her, and Rory turned to look at him again.

"Don't say 'no' just to make me stop talking or make me go away," he whispered. "Only say 'no' if you really don't want to be with me."

Rory was quiet, her chant forgotten for the moment. She thought back to all the hurt Jess had caused her in the past, and as her anger started to resurface, so did all the good memories. Stealing away from town meetings so they could be alone, late night rendezvous after the town was asleep...Suddenly, the good memories seemed to outweigh the bad ones.

But was that enough? Could she really be considering leaving with him?

"What are you thinking right now?" Jess asked her.

Startled by the sudden sound of his voice, Rory jumped slightly. Glancing at him, she replied, "I'm thinking..." She paused, trying to figure out the best way to put her emotions in words. "I'm thinking that this is so out of the blue—"

"Very out of the blue," Jess agreed. Now it was his turn to stare at his feet. He chose his next words carefully. "I came here the other day."

He hadn't actually planned to tell her that little fact when he showed up this afternoon. But when he saw her, he knew he would eventually tell her, anyway. He didn't know what he thought would happen with the revelation, but it definitely got her attention.

Rory turned her head sideways to look at him. "You did? When?"

"Just a few days ago," he replied slowly, thoughtfully. "I came here, and I saw you at what I'm assuming was the newspaper office. Talking to some guy?"

"Doyle, probably."

"And...I saw you again, talking to Paris. She goes to Yale?"

"Yeah. She's my roommate, actually," Rory told him.

"Huh."

Rory hadn't realized how much she had missed Jess until she heard him utter that word just then. '_Huh'_. While dating him, she had become accustomed to hearing that word from him. Hell, half of Jess's sentences started and ended right there.

She found herself grinning, and he laughed. "What are you smiling at?"

"You." She bumped shoulders with him.

It was funny how easily she could go back to that place; that level of comfort that only seemed to find its way toward her when she was with Jess.

"How have you been, Rory?"

She pondered the question a moment before replying. "I've been okay."

"That's good."

Rory brought her knees to her chest, resting her chin on her kneecaps. She gazed at him. "So when you said 'come with me'...Were you serious?"

"As a heart attack," he responded without missing a beat.

Rory thought about Dean. About Lindsay. About the whole situation. She wondered how it would feel to get away for awhile...to put her problems behind her and focus her attention on something more promising. Did that something include Jess? She wasn't sure. But then...there was only one way to find out.

"How long?" she asked him.

"As long as you want."

"You won't disappear on me again?"

His lips curved into a small smile. "Never," he promised in a whisper. He brushed back a strand of hair from her face.

Jess stood up, pulling Rory with him. She looked into his eyes and decided to do it. Take a chance. If it were a mistake, at least this mistake wouldn't turn her into a home-wrecker, or label her _the other woman_.

What did she really have to lose, really? She didn't have any plans for the summer at the moment, and Jess really did seem different. She knew she was basing this solely on this one conversation with him, but she had been around him long enough to know when he was serious and when he wasn't.

"When do we leave?"

Jess's eyes lit up, and he picked her up and spun her around, causing her to head to spin yet again. She laughed, her eyes sparkling.

"Are you sure?"

Rory nodded. "I'm sure."

She couldn't get over how happy he looked at that moment. She had never seen him smile so wide before.

"You won't regret this," Jess told her, giving her a hug.

Rory returned the hug, her own smile starting to outshine his. "You know we're going to have to go to Stars Hollow and tell my mom and Luke, right?"

Jess pulled away, looking at her. "Of course. That was a given."

"Then we'll leave tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow it is."

"I guess I'll see you then."

"I'll be here." Jess flashed her one last smile, before leaving her dorm room.

Rory hurried after him, catching up to him as he was exiting the building. "Jess!" she called.

He turned around, the smile still evident on his face. "Yeah?"

"I'm glad you stopped by, Jess," she told him.

He nodded. "So am I."

They exchanged good-byes again, and he left. Rory strolled back to her room, wondering what on earth she was going to tell her mother the next day.

She didn't expect things to go back exactly to how they were before between her and Jess, but maybe they could reestablish the friendship that they had once had, at least. Her expectations were not all that high, but she had a good feeling about this.

She closed the door behind her as she walked back into her room, going around and packing up a few last things before heading off to bed. For the first time in a long time, she fell into a peaceful, dreamless sleep that night, and was free of the usual feeling of longing and regret that plagued her that last moment of consciousness, almost every night. Tonight, she relaxed, because she knew that tomorrow would be a new day filled with promise and adventure. And she was ready for it.


End file.
